


mi casa es su casa

by defcontwo



Series: playing well with others [1]
Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-18
Updated: 2012-08-18
Packaged: 2017-11-12 10:25:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/489830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/defcontwo/pseuds/defcontwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce is the first to move into Avengers Tower but he is the last to make it his home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	mi casa es su casa

Bruce is the first to move into Avengers (née Stark) Tower.

It makes sense, in that Bruce has been running for so long and he's burnt so many bridges, or rather, he's had so many bridges burnt for him that he doesn't have anywhere else to go. He knows now that there's no place that he can go that SHIELD can't follow and he doesn't have a penny to his name, and so taking shelter with a friend - yeah, it sounds like as good an idea as any. 

Pepper, with her sharp suits and even sharper smile, makes it very clear that the man who saved Tony from his own stupidity isn't about to go wandering the streets in torn pants and a mothball-ridden coat that he borrowed from a janitor. Her words, not Tony's. Tony prefers to call his stupidity bravery, it sounds more flattering. He likes being contrary like that. 

Steve is second. He blows in one day, hair mussed from riding his motorcycle, army-grade duffle slung over his shoulder, and a surprisingly sheepish look on his face. Nick Fury let the lease expire on his apartment while Steve was gone to prove a point, he explains, and the look on his face suggests he hasn't forgotten the nasty words that the two of them said to each other not so long ago. But anyways, it's not like he really liked that place, all done up in earth tones and made to look like a world that he left behind, some seventy years and so much spilt blood in the past. 

They agree on some things and disagree on just about everything else, but after a few months, Tony has to admit that having the Overgrown Boy Scout around all of the time isn't so bad after all. "You're great for opening jars that no one else can," Tony says, and Steve laughs, and yeah, that's about as close as they're ever going to get to apologizing. 

One time, Tony took a peek around Steve's apartment, expecting to find old records and a bedroom made to look like an old fashioned diner. Instead he found a surprisingly modern looking set of rooms, with nearly every surface covered in some sort of art supply, canvases strewn across the room and propped up against the walls. On the table just inside Steve's doorway lay a copy of a biography of Malcolm X. 

"Huh," Tony had said, picking up the book idly and studying the back cover. "Every day, new depths, Capsicle." 

Thor doesn't move in so much as Jane Foster stages a hostile takeover of floor six of R&D, and where Jane goes, Thor swiftly follows. Jane is easily one of the more terrifyingly brilliant people that Tony's ever met and sure, Thor's barely house-trained but Tony likes his little three person Science Club, so he figures he'll just have to put some newspaper down around the kitchen. 

If Tony had to take a wild guess on where Clint sleeps at night, he'd probably say a twenty story fire escape landing on the Lower East Side, but the marksman spends his days while in New York split evenly between eating Tony out of house and home, and hitting every target in the training room. 

Natasha probably has at least five safe houses in this city alone, none of which Tony can find, not even with his best technology combined with his highest caffeine intake. But if she is not sparring with the Cap, she's leaning out on one of the balconies, lost in her own thoughts. He thought once about interrupting her out there, trying to draw her into useless chatter or an argument for the hell of it because he still can't figure her out, doesn't think he ever will, and it needles at him. He had his mind made up, feet stepping forward to set out after her, when Clint stopped him. A hand to the elbow and a quiet shake of the head, and Tony thinks maybe he's not meant to figure her out. 

Bruce is the first to move into Avengers Tower but he is the last to make it his home. He moves carefully within the space. Not obviously, not so much so that the others notice, but Tony can tell from the way Bruce carries himself. He doesn't unpack, his meager amount of clothing still carefully folded away into his falling apart suitcase. His room is spartan, the only decoration a frameless and fraying photograph of an unnamed woman placed on the bedside table. Every night, he cleans and puts away lab equipment meticulously when he's done, as if careful not to leave a mark. He is acting as if he expects to disappear, that the day will come when he'll need to leave, and he doesn't want to leave a mess behind him when he does. 

Even after almost half a year, after the all-nighters that they've pulled in the Stark R&D labs together, tinkering with projects that may never be practical but sure are fun, and the countless fights with the Avengers Villain of the Week, Bruce is still acting like he's waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

He is, to put a finer point on it, really starting to piss Tony off. 

"Hellooo, were you listening to a word she just said?" Darcy asks, throwing an M&M at Tony's head, as he's brought back to the present and remembers where he is. Jane's floor of R&D, theorizing on inter-dimensional travel, and fiddling with a wrench that he's been carrying around all day. Right. 

"Shouldn't she be the one asking me that?" Tony asks, making a face at Darcy.

"When she gets like this, I'm pretty sure Jane wouldn't notice if I took off all of my clothes and started doing interpretive dance with her lab instruments." 

"What about my lab instruments?" Jane asks, head snapping up from where it was buried in papers of calculations. Darcy rolls her eyes. 

"Miss Lewis wants to get naked with them," Tony says, tossing the wrench onto Jane's desk. "I've gotta go talk to Bruce about something. Have fun calculating." 

"Check ya later, boss man," Darcy says, giving him a jaunty salute. 

He wonders idly on the elevator up that maybe he should have held onto that wrench, he could have thrown it at Bruce to try and stimulate a reaction. Sure, that whole poking thing hadn't worked, but no one likes to have a metal thing thrown at their head, not even the Hulk. 

"Look, Big Guy, we've really gotta talk about - what the fuck?" Tony says, wandering into Bruce's lab. 

The white walls are scorched a dark grey and there's shattered glass surrounding Bruce's latest contraption, what was supposed to be an attempt to see if Tony's clean energy models could be replicated and mass produced. 

It's in so many metal pieces, scattered outwards on the floor. Tony has never seen anything quite so beautiful. 

"It, uh, doesn't really look like that's working out too hot any time soon," Tony says giddily. Distantly, he realizes that he has a wide grin on his face that probably makes him look like a mad man. 

"It wasn't supposed to do that," Bruce says, and Tony realizes that Bruce is trying to go for shamefaced and apologetic, but there's an edge of hysteria to his voice, like he doesn't understand how this happened. It's the sort of reaction that happens when you get caught by your parents doing something you shouldn't and you don't understand why they came home early this time of all times. 

Not that Tony would know about things like that but intellectually, he understands the concept. He's seen the movies. 

He loses it, breaking out into a deep laugh, leaning against the door frame for support.

"I'll...try and repair the damage...?" 

"Welcome home, buddy," Tony wheezes. 

"You're unbalanced," Bruce says, giving Tony a stern look now, all shame clearly forgotten. 

Tony laughs harder.


End file.
